Kicking off our series on responsible coffee, here we share how we source our speciality coffees for our range of compostable coffee pods as well as our ground and whole bean formats.
To be frank, the world of coffee can be a treacherous space. Fraught with issues like human exploitation, farming practices that are detrimental to the soil and chemical decaffeination. If you're not careful, your morning cup of coffee could be supporting a barrage of irresponsible practices. But there is a way to escape all these negatives and enjoy coffee that has a much smaller, kinder footprint on the planet.
In setting up Blue Goose, we committed to putting people and the planet ahead of profits. To explain that further, we are going to lift the lid on our processes, decisions and production to highlight some of the efforts we put in place to ensure our coffee is sourced, processed and delivered to you in the most responsible way possible. Here, we look into how we source speciality coffee for our compostable coffee pods.
Beyond Fairtrade
As well as delivering our coffee in capsules that break down in commercial compost environments, or at home if you’re a home compost pro, we want to make sure that the people that grow it are not being exploited. For all our coffees at Blue Goose, we pay smallholder cooperatives a premium as they are producing the highest quality coffee in the world, all scoring 80 points or above on the 100-point Coffee Review scale, which is the worldwide coffee grading standard. This premium is well above the Fairtrade minimum price and the commodity end of the coffee market.
This means our growers not only enjoy a greater income, but they can continually grow their businesses so that their families and local communities can grow and prosper too. They can also continue to invest in the sustainable farming practices that maximise biodiversity and use the tree and forest canopies to shade grow their coffees which produces a superior coffee bean, or technically the coffee cherry.
Speciality Coffees every single time
One of the problems that coffee pods suffered from when we created Blue Goose was the quality of flavour in the resulting cup. This issue went beyond the extraction and grind of the coffee and often is a result of the quality of the green (unroasted) coffee itself - the raw crop.
There is a stark difference between commodity and speciality coffee - an issue we will cover at a later date - but for a great tasting, delicious cup of coffee, you need to start with the best quality product. Many big brand coffee producers rely on the low price of commodity coffee, which is often sun grown (where land is stripped of any other trees and plants) for greater yield, with price the most important factor and flavour lower down the order of priority. The result is a generic beige tasting coffee that may sometimes hit the spot, but never has you smacking your lips in satisfaction.
There’s just no cutting corners at this step and we have been dedicated from the outset to bringing you compostable coffee capsules that are not only consciously sound, but taste exceptional too. The secret to doing this? Only buying from trusted sources of speciality grade coffee. While there’s some technical wizardry that goes into getting the right grind for the perfect coffee capsule extraction of these coffees. None of that would be possible without first starting with the finest ingredients .
Producing coffee responsibly is fundamental to us here at Blue Goose. The sustainable practices we’ve put in place are there so you can enjoy your coffee with complete peace of mind. Low impact to the environment, supporting communities above the Fairtrade minimum pricing and completely plastic-free.
If you haven’t already tried our coffees, why not go for it… we’re sure they’ll put a smile on your face in so many more ways than your current capsules!